A 12-year-old Oklahoma girl took extreme measures to protect herself when an unfamiliar man broke into her home last Wednesday. The girl, who was home alone during a day off from school, shot and wounded the home intruder, local NBC affiliate KTEN News reports.

Kendra St. Clair, was home by herself when a man rang the doorbell to her Bryan County, Okla., home. She didn’t answer, so the trespasser walked to the back of the house and kicked open a door. St. Clair called her mother, who advised her to grab the family’s gun and hide, according to an interview she gave to local broadcaster KFOR-TV. Authorities said that the girl found the gun and took shelter in a bathroom closet.

“I was sitting there in the closet, really scared, holding the gun, not knowing what was going to happen,” St. Clair told KFOR-TV.

Bryan County Under Sheriff Ken Golden told KTEN that the intruder worked his way through the house and to the bathroom, and he was turning the doorknob to St. Clair’s closet when she fired through the door.

The girl then called 911 for help.

“She was very brave, she stayed on the phone with the dispatcher the whole time—talked all the way through it and was still on the phone with dispatch when we got into the house,” Golden said to KTEN.

The intruder, who KTEN says has been identified as 32-year-old Stacy Jones of Texarkana, was flown to a hospital in Plano, Texas. Jones survived the shot to his shoulder, and he has been charged with first-degree burglary, according to KOCO TV.

St. Clair has been widely lauded as a hometown hero for her quick actions, KFOR reports.

“When I had the gun, I didn’t think I was actually going to have to shoot somebody,” St. Clair told ABC News. “I think it’s going to change me a whole lot, knowing that I can hold my head up high and nothing can hurt me anymore.”

According to a 2010 survey by the Daily Beast, Oklahoma ranks as the 12th “most armed” state in the nation. The University of Chicago’s General Social Survey found that 35 percent of Americans have lived with a gun in their house in the past decade. Telephone polls from Gallup and other sources have suggested this number may be closer to 42 percent.